Favorite Schools

Favorite Teams

Oregon Ducks say college football's new low-hit rule won't affect how they play

Oregon football spring practice media availability, Wed, Apr 16, 2014

Defensive coordinator Don Pellum talks to members of the media after spring football practice on April 16. On Wednesday, Pellum said a new NCAA rule that penalizes hitting quarterbacks low shouldn't affect Oregon much.
(Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)

EUGENE -- College football spent much of its offseason in a loud national rules debate, but once the fervor ended and a controversial proposal was retracted, Oregon's coaches haven't had many new lessons to teach their players this spring.

The latest rule change won't do much to change the way the Ducks play, Oregon coaches said Wednesday. On April 16, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a rule that aims to protect quarterbacks from low hits -- the college version of the NFL's so-called "Brady Rule" after New England's Tom Brady, who tore his ACL in 2008 from a hit below the knee.

When a quarterback is "in a passing posture with one or both feet on the ground … no defensive player rushing unabated can hit him forcibly at or below knee level," according to the NCAA's wording. Defenders will also be penalized 15 yards if they "initiate a roll or lunge" into the knee, also.

The rule struck Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich as "probably a common sense thing" and nothing his team didn't already know.

"I don't think that happens often," he said. "I think they’re trying to remove a dirty play, which is probably a good thing."

It's not much of an issue for the Ducks, defensive coordinator Don Pellum said, because UO teaches to hit at chest level.

"The ball’s up here and we want to target the upper body because that’s where we’ve got the chance to strip," Pellum said. "We want to tackle guys and push them back, so that has not been an emphasis but coach Helfrich did go over it."

Previously in March, the panel adopted a revision to its year-old "targeting" rule on defenseless players. Now officials can determine via video review whether a player deserves an ejection, and if the call is overturned, there will be no more 15-yard penalty.

The most controversial rules proposal this offseason would have penalized offenses for snapping within 10 seconds of the start of the play clock to guard against overfatigued players. In the eyes of Oregon's coaches, that proposal was the anti-common sense rule.

"It was a couple guys who didn’t want to play against a fast-tempo offense trying to turn it into a injury issue and there’s absolutely no basis or support for that injury issue against teams that play fast," UO offensive coordinator Scott Frost said April 4.

After an NCAA committee recommended the rule in February, however, there was so much opposition that the proposal was eventually tabled and it never came before an NCAA panel vote in March.